Comparing of the effects of perceived injunctive and descriptive norms on the willingness to quit smoking among Chinese low‐rate and regular smokers

Abstract

Although social norms play a significant role on smoking cessation, the different impacts of injunctive and descriptive norms on the willingness to quit smoking among different types of smokers and underlying mechanisms are relatively little known. The current study aimed to investigate the influence of injunctive and descriptive norms on willingness to quit, respectively, for Chinese low‐rate and regular smokers and to examine the mediated effects of the decisional balance of smoking. For this study, 132 Chinese low‐rate smokers and 208 regular smokers completed questionnaires that assessed injunctive norms, descriptive norms, the decisional balance of smoking, and the willingness to quit smoking. The results showed that the stronger willingness to quit was associated with stronger injunctive norms among low‐rate smokers and was associated with stronger descriptive norms among regular smokers. Decisional balance of smoking mediated the relationship between injunctive norms and the willingness to quit among low‐rate smokers, but not among regular smokers. These findings highlight the importance of different functions of injunctive and descriptive norms for different types of smokers, and deepen the understanding of the role of decisional balance of smoking on the relationship between the different types of social norms and willingness to quit, respectively, among low‐rate and regular smokers.